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THE Caprice is London's answer to La Coupole. The food is a hundred times better (whatever people say, you don't always eat best, or even well, in France) and the decor more knowingly chic, but it's the only place we have which you Go Out to: for me, it induces an instant good mood. And it's neither expensive nor pretentious.
But it has its detractors. Critics find fault with it for its 'fashionableness', and it is beyond doubt fashionable; but that does not also mean to say that the food is bad and the atmosphere daunting. You don't have to be Marie Helvin, Peter Blake or Harold Pinter (all regulars) to be greeted warmly when you go in. It has to be said that the majority of tables are filled with the see-and-be-seen types who push a fork round a plate just to show that they know restaurants are for eating in, but you can come in looking a pre-transformation Bet- te Davis in Now Voyager without wishing the ground would open up beneath you.
I have never worked out why it should be that the Caprice with all its black-and- white angularity and tamed glamour should be so unintimidating. I think it may be to do with the fact that the'waiters act as if they're on your side; they'll even recog- nise you, or pretend to, after one visit.
Its critics also see the retro/intro chic as indicative of an unserious culinary approach. As if red gingham cloths on cramped tables in a tenebrous atmosphere assured a good chef. There really is no place for inverted snobbery of this sort if you are genuinely interested in finding somewhere with good food.
Now the menu at the Caprice is a delight. For one thing it's written in plain language (though they admittedly haven't decided whether English or French): none of this symphonie de something caressed with this and nestling in that. It's in fact a relatively simple menu, which is just as well, as a large proportion of those eating there are probably on a diet.
To go through my favourites would involve an inordinate display of gluttony but, on a pruned list, I'd have to put (to start with) their eggs Benedict — poached egg on a toasted bun with a thick slice of fresh ham covered in hollandaise sauce a simple thing maybe, and only £1.75 (£3.50 as a main course), but a really voluptuous treat. Their fresh tuna salad is creamy and garlicky, only for before a plain main course, as is Bang Bang chicken — slices of breast meat in a peanutty, soya sauce marinade, with fingers of cucumber.
This might sound revolting but it's worth overcoming prejudices and trying it. The `body-conscious' can indulge keeping their virtue intact on raw salmon marinated in lime, or Carpaccio — gorgeously-coloured raw beef fillet cut in slivers, so called after the particular red the painter used.
Just like La Coupole, the Caprice makes a mean steak tartare, which comes with searingly hot pommes allumettes. What's particularly comforting, and very filling, is their salmon fishcake with spinach and a sorrel sauce. Other worth-mentionables are grilled duck breasts and fillet of beef with béarnaise sauce; I can't think of anything to avoid. Dieters, beware the pudding menu! I've noticed that non-pudding-eaters fall down on this one. Favourites are the sorbets — a plateful of lozenge-shaped fresh ices, exo- tic and otherwise — and their parfait praline sauce caramel, a deliciously creamy, sticky mess and, the thing I can never resist, their mousse aux deux choco- lats: I always ask for three-quarters white and a quarter brown; next time I'm going to have the courage of my convictions and go for all-out white. But it's Sunday brunch when the Caprice really comes into its own: pitchers of bloody Mary or Buck's fizz; eggs Benedict or Arlington (the same as Benedict except smoked salmon is substituted for the ham and puff pastry for the bun); bagels with sour cream, preserves or smoked salmon; minute steak or ham and eggs; and various more substantial dishes.
The wine list is good: not just the ordinaries, though no German wines. You can order champagne by the glass at £2.75, house wine is £5 a bottle and you can drink any cocktail imaginable.
Just being over the road, it's a good place to go to after the Royal Academy on Sunday afternoons, when last orders are at three o'clock. Last orders for dinner, seven nights a week, are at midnight (useful for after opera) when a plate of eggs Benedict with extra bread to dunk is much nicer than an haute cuisine blow-out. You can easily get away with £10-115 a head, less if you don't drink, and the whole show is run with cool efficiency by Christopher Corbin and Jeremy King, to whom and to their chef, Charles Fontaine, all praise.
Nigella Lawson
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